Aditya Birla Group invests in 8 D2C brands🧥; Flipkart's $700M Esop buyback💰; India's first private launchpad🚀

TMRW to invest Rs 300 Cr in eight digital-first brands, Flipkart readies $700M Esop buyback, India gets its first private launchpad, Funding Deals and more.

Rise & Shine ☀

Nov 29, 2022

Morning folks👋🏻

Start your day, the smart way!

1 Mail | 2 Mins | 3 Stories

Aditya Birla Group's TMRW to invest Rs 300 Cr in eight digital-first brands🧥

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail’s venture TMRW will invest nearly Rs 300 crore to acquire stakes in eight different digital-first lifestyle brands, including D2C brand Bewakoof.

The brands are women’s western wear label Berrylush, casual wear brand Bewakoof, women’s casual & western wear brand Juneberry, teen’s occasion wear brand Natilene, kid’s wear Nauti Nati, athleisure and activewear brand Nobero, casual and denim wear brand Urbano, and casual wear and fast fashion brand Veirdo, it said in a statement.

With these brands on board, TMRW has achieved a revenue run-rate of Rs 700 crore and is on track to cross an annual revenue rate of Rs 1,500 crore in the next 12 months, the company said.

Flipkart readies $700M Esop buyback as part of PhonePe funding round💰

Flipkart is likely to facilitate a $700 million employee stock buyback as part of PhonePe's new financing round.

The buyback, likely the largest in India’s new-age economy, is part of PhonePe’s latest $1.5 billion to $2 billion funding round led by Walmart.

The transaction will cause Flipkart's valuation to be adjusted from $37.6 billion to about $33 billion, as PhonePe will have a separate shareholding structure. PhonePe, valued at $5.5 billion, is currently marked as an asset within Flipkart.

The buyback is significant not only because of its size but also because it comes amid a funding crunch for the technology and startup ecosystem in India and around the world.

Hot Shorts⚡

Covvalent, a B2B platform for specialty chemicals, has raised $4.3 million in a seed funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners.
Real estate broking firm Homesfy has secured $1.1 million from early-stage growth investors Girish Gulati, Dnyanesh Bhatavadekar, Neha Idnany, Yogesh Bagaria, and Amit Bagaria.
Relove, a technology platform that helps brands with circularity, has raised $700,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Hearth Ventures.

Funding Deals 💰

India gets its first private launchpad and control centre🚀

India's first privately-owned space rocket launchpad and mission control centre was inaugurated at the ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, said Agnikul Cosmos.

Agnikul Cosmos, the city-based rocket startup, said the launchpad and the mission control centre were designed by it and executed with the support of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and private sector space regulator IN-SPACe.

The company said the launch of its first rocket will happen from its own launchpad. The mission would be a technology demonstrator that will mirror Agnikul's orbital launch but at a reduced scale.